Sunday, August 3, 2008

Is energy sustainable?

I read a book called 'Keeping the lights on - Towards Sustainable Electricity', by Walt patterson.
[also on my shelfari bookshelf]

written in a simple language, it discusses various 'myths' related to sustainable energy and proposes an argument about changing the way we look at energy.
among other things, his main points are:

energy is only used and not consumed.

since energy can never be created or destroyes [as per the law of thermodynamics], as can only do something about the use of fuels

we need to change the way we think about the energy carriers aka fuels

one of the main reasons for promoting a culture of energy self sufficiency and energy security is the way we treat and charge the usage of energy

building more efficient networks for transsportation of fuels [including electricity] could also help increase the benefits we derive from these fuels

he goes on to talk about the complete ecosystem - of the energy carriers [such as electricity], the converters [devices].
he talks and quotes from another paper of his 'running the planet', where he urges us to stop borrowing from our descendants.

written in simple language, this book can be read to get a quick overview of various issues related to energy being sustainable.

but, the treatment of some of the aspects is not very deep and particularly the references to not using nuclear energy is not very convincing.

his website promises a lot more detailed treatment that i have not gone through yet.